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"There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion" Francis Bacon 1561-1626

Sunday, 18 November 2012

Colour Sketches

Not much on the drawing board this week but lots of plotting and planning, ideas and inspirations for the next couple of months.

I have only managed three walks and was thinking mostly about the next workshop at Easton which is next Sunday 25th and our last meeting this year.

Three-Colour Landscapes

We will be talking about limited palettes and how to create a simple painting from sketch. So I walked up to the Visitor Centre again and made this quick three colour note of the spinney.

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This sketch is 5 x 8 inches. It’s just 3 primaries winsor blue (green shade), winsor red and winsor yellow. I added some rooks who love to hang around the VC at this time of year, hopeful for scraps. There is not much green around now so I was careful not to lay the blue over the yellow too much. It was very cold and the paint took a long time to dry which always means I worked over too soon and got duller colours. My numb fingers also dropped the brush onto it …sigh. I do struggle with watercolour drying times for quick sketching. I should have taken the gouache.

I have made quite a few sketches and notes of this spinney, only because it’s a nice place to sit with a cup of tea. (see previous notes) but it makes a good subject for a simple painting.

These are from earlier in the summer when there were more leaves, a picnic and a strong wind.

This one from a couple of weeks ago.. less leaves.. and fisherman.

Back home I took a slightly bigger sketchbook (10 x 7 inches) and made a small painting. Again with the same colours but the blue is w. blue (red shade), to get a nicer purple mix. I did wait for the paint to dry this time.

Stage 1: first washes.

Stage 2: adding the darker tones. I have just realised I forgot the rooks!

Its easy to forget how effective just these three colours can be.

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Later in the week, a few more limited palette notes (just 3 colours in each case) from the other few chilly walks this week.

Its a great exercise for playing with just a few colours and seeing what happens…. hopefully more next week.